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The Palatinate (; ; Palatine German: Palz), or the Rhenish Palatinate ( Rheinpfalz), is a historical region of Germany. The Palatinate occupies most of the Southern Germany quarter of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate ( Rheinland-Pfalz), covering an area of with about 1.4 million inhabitants. Its residents are known as Palatines ( Pfälzer).
One-third of the region is covered by the Palatinate Forest ( Pfälzerwald), including the Palatinate Forest Nature Park popular with hikers. With about , it is Germany's largest contiguous forested area, and is part of the Franco-German Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve.
The western and northern part of the Palatinate is densely forested and mountainous. Its highest mountain is the Donnersberg with a height of , situated in the North Palatine Uplands near Kirchheimbolanden. Most of the major Palatinate towns (Ludwigshafen, Speyer, Landau, Frankenthal, Neustadt) lie in the lower eastern part of the Upper Rhine Plain down to the River Rhine. Here the German Wine Route ( Deutsche Weinstraße) passes through the Palatinate wine region. It is one of the greatest wine-producing regions in Germany, and in the last two decades has become well known for its prize-winning white and reds of highest quality produced by a number of talented young winemakers.
Major rivers include the Upper Rhine tributaries Lauter, Queich and Speyerbach, as well as Schwarzbach and Glan in the west.
Historically the Electoral Palatinate and several other territories were part of the Palatinate, but today belong to other German territories.
Formerly a Celts region, this area was conquered by the Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus in about 12 BC; thereafter, it was part of the province of Germania Superior. During the decline of the Empire, tribes settled here; their territory was conquered by Francia under King Clovis I about 496. From 511 onwards, the area belonged to the eastern part of Frankish Austrasia, which—as Rhenish Franconia—became part of East Francia according to the 843 Treaty of Verdun.
The major ecclesiastical territory in the region was the Bishopric of Speyer. The Imperial city of Landau joined the Alsatian Décapole in 1521 to preserve its status. Nevertheless, it was seized by France after the Thirty Years' War.
Other larger regional entities included the Duchy of Zweibrücken and the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer.Adalbert Heib: Beamtenverzeichniß und Statistik des Königlich Bayerischen Regierungs-Bezirkes der Pfalz, Speyer, Kranzbühler, 1863, pp. 58 ff ( Online) The Prince-Bishopric held possessions on both sides of the Rhine. For centuries, the Electoral Palatinate and Bavaria maintained dynastic links because both were ruled by members of the Wittelsbach family.
In the main treaty agreed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and dated 9 June 1815, Article 51 stated ( inter alia) that on the Left Bank of the Rhine the former French départements of the Sarre and Mont-Tonnerre, except where set forth in the same treaty, were to fall "with full sovereignty" and ownership rights within the overlordship of His Majesty the Emperor of Austria ( Herrschaft Sr. Maj. des Kaisers von Oesterreich). Haupt-Vertrag des zu Wien versammelten Congresses der europäischen Mächte, Fürsten und freien Städte, nebst 17 besondern Verträgen, Article 51, p. 101 ( digitalised) Initially, however, joint Austro-Bavarian administration was retained.
On 14 April 1816, a treaty was signed between Austria and Bavaria in which the various territorial changes were agreed on. According to Article 2 of the treaty, Emperor Francis I of Austria ceded various regions to King Maximilian I of Bavaria. These included, in addition to various regions east of the Rhine, the following regions west of the Rhine:Treaty of Munich dated 14 April 1816 in G. M. Kletke: Die Staats-Verträge des Königreichs Bayern ... von 1806 bis einschließlich 1858, Regensburg, Pustet, 1860, p. 310 ( Online)
These changes took effect on 1 May 1816.
In accordance with the prevailing Bavarian administrative structure, the region became one of eight Bavarian districts ( Kreise). From 1808, Bavaria embarked on the administrative reorganisation of its territory, creating districts which, as in France, were named after the main local rivers. Thus, the new district along the Rhine was given the name Rheinkreis (i.e. the Rhine district), with Speyer as its capital. Of the former French administrative structure, the subdivision of the district into arrondissements, cantons, mayoralties, and municipalities was, in large measure, retained. The Bavarian government also preserved the French legal system (Code Napoléon), giving the Palatinate a distinct legal status within the Bavarian kingdom. At the next lower level, the three former French were continued as Kreisdirektion ("Circle", i.e. district, "direction") of Frankenthal, Kaiserslautern, and Zweibrücken. Landau was, however, a new creation. In 1818, the cantons were merged into 12 administrative districts called Landkommissariat. In 1862, these were designated individually as Bezirksamt. In 1939, each one became a Landkreis (rural district). As his first provincial governor, King Maximilian selected the Privy Councillor ( Hofrat) Franz Xaver von Zwack, whose name gave rise to the popular Palatine nickname for Bavarians, Zwockel. In 1832 the Rheinkreis became the focal point of liberal movements. The Hambach Festival, a large gathering near Neustadt an der Weinstraße, proved fertile ground for what came to be considered a milestone in German history.
In 1835, King Ludwig I of Bavaria's Romanticism outlook gave rise to the adoption of new, historically evocative names for the administrative districts of Bavaria. As such, the Rheinkreis officially became the Pfalz (Palatinate). The historic Electorate of the Palatinate had spanned both sides of the Rhine with Heidelberg and Mannheim as its capitals on the eastern side, whereas the new "Palatinate" established in 1815–16 lay solely on the left bank of the Rhine. It included territories that had never been part of the historical Palatinate (e.g., territories of the former Bishopric of Speyer, the imperial city of Speyer or Kirchheimbolanden, which had formerly belonged to the Weilburg branch of Nassau). To avoid confusion of the new Palatinate and the former one (and with the Upper Palatinate), the name Rhenish Palatinate ( Rheinpfalz) became common and is still used today, but was never made its official name. Another term, that of Rhenish Bavaria ( Rheinbayern), though used occasionally, never gained great currency, but can, nonetheless, be found sometimes on older maps.
The Bavarian Royal Family tried to encourage Palatine unity with Bavaria by erecting a royal palace in Edenkoben, and by restoring Speyer Cathedral under the direct supervision of King Ludwig I. The new town of Ludwigshafen was named after the king. Despite these attempts, the Palatinate's representatives to the Bavarian Parliament always prided themselves on the claim that they came from a more progressive region. Indeed, they tried to promote their liberalism, which the French had introduced to the Palatinate, to the whole Bavarian kingdom. German historian Heiner Haan described the special status accorded the Palatinate within Bavaria as being one of a Hauptstaat (main state, i.e. Bavaria) with a Nebenstaat (adjacent state, i.e. the Palatinate).
In May/June 1849, after the failed revolution of 1848, and as part of the Imperial Constitution campaign, separatist elements wanted the district to secede from Bavaria and establish its own "Palatine Republic". A separatist uprising was suppressed by Prussian military intervention. The Palatinate's union with Bavaria persisted after it became part of the German Empire in 1871, and, indeed, after the Wittelsbach dynasty was deposed, and Bavaria became a free state of the Weimar Republic in 1918.
In 1910, the town of Landau was declared independent of the Bezirksamt.
Between 1919 and 1923, during the occupation, there were French-backed attempts at separating the Palatinate from Bavaria and the Empire. On 1 June 1919, Eberhard Haaß, founder of the "Free Palatine Association" (1918), proclaimed the "Palatine Republic", but failed to occupy the government building in Speyer.
On 23 November 1923, Franz Josef Heinz proclaimed the "Government of the Autonomous Palatinate in the Association of the Rhenish Republic" at Speyer, after gaining control of the towns of Kaiserslautern, Neustadt, and Landau, and after the capitulation of the Palatine government. In the following days, several more towns fell into his group's hands. The Bavarian government reacted sharply. It organised a squad under the command of Edgar Julius Jung. On 9 January 1924, Heinz was assassinated while dining at the Wittelsbacher Hof in Speyer. Other leading members of the separatist movement were killed on 12 February, in a shooting in Pirmasens. By then, a treaty between Bavaria and the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission (the supreme council of the Allied occupation forces) of January 1924 recognised the status quo and guaranteed that the Palatinate would remain a part of Bavaria, thereby putting an end to separatist attempts.
Under Nazi rule, from 1933 to 1945, the Palatinate officially remained part of Bavaria, but was otherwise totally reorganised—it was merged with the Saarland into the Gau Westmark, with headquarters in Saarbrücken.
The Pfalz was initially one of five districts in Rhineland-Palatinate; however, in 1968, the district was merged with the neighbouring district of Rheinhessen to form the district of Rheinhessen-Pfalz. On 1 January 2000, all administrative districts of Rheinland-Pfalz were dissolved.
Many more Palatines emigrated in the course of the 19th century, and the great majority of them to North America, so that in the US temporarily "Palatine" was a common designation for . Johann Heinrich Heinz (1811–1891), the father of Henry John Heinz who founded the H. J. Heinz Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, emigrated from Kallstadt, Palatinate, to the United States in 1840.
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